My list for the year, a mixed bag, but the theme of this year is story telling. Tell me, show me a story and do it well, because the game play will take care of itself. The 'transportive' ability (to take the player places & feel things) of game cannot grow unless they can take us to place more easily, and thus stories need to get better just as graphics or saving system or types of game mechanism need to get better.
A thought provoking game that says and a lot by asking the player to do very little except feel and move. The art, the story (what of it there is) and the overall message of the game are spectacular. This game will get a lot of top spots this year...yet will probably never sell 1/10 as well as it should. If Sony is smart they will cut the price and sell as many units as they can off the hype. This is NOT a game for everyone, but you can take the measure of a gamer by what they say about this game.
Probably as close as we will get to a technically proficient game that works about as well as it should. Dense game play and story combined to a solid effort that is enjoyable to play. The best sandbox made this year that only fails because good ideas and story beats were wasted. If there was ever a game that needed not only a writer but and editor it is Far Cry...so damn close to being more then teh sum of its very great parts.
A story based game that was not afraid to have "the game play" service the story instead of the other way around. Story matters! The Walking Dead development team understood that stories matters in a way that other teams will have to learn.
The finale to this epic trilogy manages to meet some of the expectations set forth by the player-base. Meeting the high expectation even on just a few levels is an achievement, but this game is at my fourth choice because the game was gutted for DLC that should have been in the game. Done justice with the DLC returned to the main game play this game would have been my top choice.
Dragon's Dogma excels at creating a new world and interesting mythos for a world, and also exceeds that with interesting battle & magic combat. Yes, it may not be perfect, but I can't think of any game that is perfect.
A little rough around the edges, much like Dragon's Dogma, but again this is a seriously enjoyable sandbox backed up by an involving story, well-rounded characters and some brutal combat.
A game intense visceral gun-play, an intriguing consequence system and poses philosophical questions that any good sci-fi should bring up. I think the ideas and story outshine the merely adequate gun play. I wish more sci-fi game would be more like this and less like Halo or Mass Effect (well ME at its worst)
Let's be honest about 90% of the people making list will leave this off, yet most of them will play more hours of this game then any other. Giving credit where is is do is part of being an adult; games like this do what they do very well the sooner we admit this the better.
Action! Action the way an action game should have action.
It is sad that there are issues with this game, but it is still a good enough to scrape the bottom of my list. There is something special about building your team and setting it against the challenges. I wish the game had a bit more polish and ways to un-FUBAR a game gone wrong...but that's part of it I guess...this is a game you can screw up to teh point of failure.
